Adoption of Social Media in Community Radio Content Production and Programming in South Africa: A case of MakhadoFM

Abstract

Social media has fundamentally transformed the community broadcasting landscape globally, South Africa included. Social media platforms such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and WhatsApp are increasingly integrated into the daily operations of community radio stations, reshaping how news is gathered, produced, and distributed. These platforms facilitate participatory communication, allowing audiences to contribute insights, opinions, and feedback, and enabling stations to promote their programmes and personalities to a broader and more engaged audiences (Bulani et al., 2023). Community radio stations can leverage on the technological affordances of social media for audience building, branding, accessing expert content, and real-time listener engagement. Technical attributes of social media such as interactivity, network building, and information sharing-support the participatory ethos central to community broadcasting. Despite these benefits, the process of adopting social media in community radio has been uneven and often unstructured. Many stations lack formal guidelines or designated personnel to manage digital integration, resulting in underutilisation of social media’s full potential. This can create a disconnect between on-air listenership and online engagement and restricts the ability of stations to expand their reach and impact (Bosch, 2014). While there is a growing body of research on the adoption of social media in mainstream media, there remains a significant gap in scholarship specifically focused on community radio’s integration of these platforms in South Africa (Bulani et al., 2023). Drawing insights from the Technology Adoption Model Theory (TAM) and Diffusion of Innovation theory, a qualitative case study research design anchored on semi-structured interviews, document analysis and observations was deployed to gain insights into how social media is integrated in the everyday operations of MakhadoFM in Vhembe District, Limpopo Province, South Africa. The study revealed that MakhadoFM deploys a variety of social media platforms for news sourcing, news dissemination and audience engagement to enhance its operations in an increasingly competitive media environment. The study broadens existing literature on social media usage and adoption of digital media in community broadcasting in contexts where communities are underserved by the mainstream media.